


Wash It All Away

by SinnamonSpider



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Emotional, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Season/Series 01, Sibling Incest, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 19:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10367622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinnamonSpider/pseuds/SinnamonSpider
Summary: Somehow, Sam has gotten stuck with laundry duty.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set directly after S01E03 "Dead In The Water". No song inspiration for this one, shockingly, but I did write the entire second half with Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is" on endless loop, so that's the vibe I'm going for.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated!
> 
> Standard disclaimers apply.

Somehow, Sam has gotten stuck with laundry duty.

Typical.

He unzips his duffel, pulling out the plastic grocery bag his dirty clothes are tucked away in and emptying it onto the rickety table in the tiny laundry room of the Motel of the Week. He closes his bag, drops it onto the floor, and picks up Dean’s, setting it on the table and opening it.

“Jeez, Dean.”

Dean’s bag is crammed full of clothes, no indication of what is clean and what is not. There’s an odd smell rising from the bag - thankfully, not a usual dirty laundry smell, but something damp and mildewed. Making a face, he upends the whole bag onto the tabletop, sorting darks from lights.

He picks up a shirt that actually is damp, and is likely the cause of the smell permeating the rest of the clothes. He recognizes it as the shirt Dean was wearing when they had both dived into Lake Manitoc to save Lucas. The smell of lake water and something else, something faint and underneath and more sinister, fills his nostrils. He shivers like he can still feel the frigid water, the cold leeching into his bones.

A pair of jeans, deeper in the pile, are crusted with dried blood and dirt. These must have been the jeans Dean had on when he was taken by the wendigo. Sam brushes his hand over the smears, rust and brown flakes snowing down onto the scuffed floor.

He pulls out a black t-shirt covered in plaster dust from the wreckage inside Constance Welch’s house, a distinct line ground into the fabric just above the hem, where the table that had pinned them against the car had been.

The last shirt reeks of smoke and a hint of blood and sulphur and Sam knows it’s the one Dean was wearing when he pulled Sam from the burning apartment, Jess still pinned to the ceiling above them.

He’d burned the clothes he had been wearing the next day.

Trembling with a dozen different emotions, Sam scoops up all the clothes and dumps them into the empty washing machine, haphazardly tossing detergent in and slamming the lid. He picks a cycle without really looking and doesn’t wait to hear the gush of the water starting before he leaves the room.

* * *

 

The door of their motel room bangs off the wall as he flings it open and Dean, standing by his bed in nothing but his boxers, jumps in alarm and spills beer down his bare chest. “Christ, Sam,” he complains, snagging his discarded t-shirt from the bedspread and wiping the trickle of liquid from his body.

Sam knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he’s coming in too hot, that there’s a little alarm bell going off in his psyche that started up when he took in Dean’s state of undress. Because they’ve only been back hunting together for a little over a month, and they haven’t talked about any of it yet. There hasn’t been enough time or alcohol to have that conversation - to talk about what they’d left behind, or that morning at the bus depot, or Jess, or how Dean had gotten through these last four years. But the evidence of the danger they faced every time they took on a case, smeared and dusted over Dean’s dirty laundry, is too much for him right now, and he closes the gap between them.

There are other reminders, ones he can’t throw in the washing machine and slam the lid on. He can see an unfamiliar scar across Dean’s left pectoral muscle, white and healed, and another that’s still a bit pink on his right bicep. Old wounds, but new at the same time, gouged into flesh Sam had once worshipped with hands and tongue and mouth, and all without him there to wash them clean, stitch them up. He reaches out a finger to trace the one on Dean’s chest, ignoring the wide-eyed look he’s getting in reply.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t come with you?” Sam asks, his voice shaking more than he’s comfortable with. “Would you have gone to look for Dad without me?”

Shaken by Sam’s intensity, Dean gives a straight answer for once. “I don’t know. I didn’t think that far.” He drops his eyes, but not before Sam sees a flash of guilt. “I knew you’d come. I knew you wouldn’t say no.” He looks back up, setting his jaw, trying to cover the emotions laid bare on his face. “But yes. If I’d had to, I’d have gone without you.”

The air is punched out of Sam’s lungs, as though he had expected a different answer.

Dean turns away, setting the beer bottle on the nightstand. He turns back, struggles to meet Sam’s eyes, body tensed like he was expecting this, had been dreading it. “I’m sorry, Sam. I know this is my fault, that you blame me for taking you away from her. You’re right to blame me. I dragged you back into this, I dragged you away from her, and if you’d been there, maybe it would have been - ”

Jess. He’s talking about Jess.

“That’s not what this is, Dean.” Sam could almost laugh, feels the hysteria pressing against his teeth, itching to come out. “It’s nothing to do with Jess. It’s you. If I hadn’t been there…” He rakes his hand through his hair and looks at Dean, whose face is still twisted with shame. “You’d probably have gotten through Jericho alright. But the wendigo? Or Peter?”

Dean’s look of confusion is nearly comical. “Sam, what are you talking about?”

“How long were you hunting alone?” 

“Sam…” Dean knows where he’s going with this now, and he hesitates. Sam steps in close and because Dean isn’t wearing a shirt he has no choice but to grab him by the shoulders. “How. Long?” he grits out. Dean looks away. “Long enough.”

Sam shakes him, hard, forcing Dean to make eye contact again. “Godamnit, Dean, just answer me! How long?” He can feel Dean’s shoulders tense under his hands.

“Two weeks after you left,” Dean says quietly. “Dad gave me two weeks to wallow and drink and mope and then he tossed me the keys to the car and a case and we split up. We’d check in over the phone about once a week, and meet in person every few months. But only when things got too dangerous.”

Sam’s knees buckle and suddenly his grip on Dean is the only thing keeping him upright. Dean catches him around the waist, keeps him from crumpling to the ground. “Jesus, Dean,” Sam gasps, voice breaking as he clings to Dean. “So the better part of four years.” He struggles to stand again, swaying. Dean pulls him in, letting him slump against his frame, holding up his weight, and it’s the closest they’ve been intentionally, meaningfully, in years.

“Yes, Sam. But I’m fine, obviously. It was never more than I could handle.” Dean is warm beneath him, all bare skin and corded muscle, and it takes everything Sam has not to curl into his chest. He raises a hand to scrub over his face instead. “Yeah, Dean, but it could have been. It doesn’t take much for everything to go south. We know that, better than anyone.”

Dean shifts beneath Sam’s weight. “Okay, Sam, you’re right. It was dangerous and reckless. There were a couple of close shaves. But I’m _fine_. I’ve always been fine. And you’re here now again. You gonna get thrown for a loop by stuff that’s all done and dealt with?”

“I…” Sam trails off, because the obvious answer is yes, he _is_ going to get thrown for a loop by stuff that’s done and dealt with, because it’s Dean and he can’t ever be flippant when it comes to Dean. He gives in to temptation, just the slightest bit, and lets his head fall down onto Dean’s shoulder.

His breath gusts over Dean’s skin and he feels Dean shiver under him. Dean’s hands tighten fractionally on his waist, one thumb smoothing back and forth across his hipbone, over his shirt. It’s a small, innocent movement, not meant as anything more than comfort. But Sam’s heart stutters in his chest.

Sam straightens up; his neck is starting to hurt. He’s still not used to being taller than Dean - when he left for Stanford, they’d been the same height. Looking down at Dean is strange, after looking up at him for all these years. He imagines that Dean is having a worse time of it, having to look up to meet his baby brother’s eyes. He does it anyways, and something is burning in that bottle-green gaze.

Sam swallows hard, his throat clicking. Dean’s hands are still on his waist. They’re still too close. Sam is still shaking, but it feels different now.

He feels Dean’s hands tighten on his skin, fractionally, as his brother leans in, stretches up, closes the barely-there gap between them. Dean’s nose skims across Sam’s chin.

“Sammy.”

It’s a prayer, a benediction, a promise, a balm on his aching heart. It’s like a sentence finally finished, after years of silence. It’s just his name, but Dean says it like it’s his entire existence.

Sam leans down as Dean stretches up further and their lips graze, and Sam feels like a marionette with cut strings, like he’s tumbling to the ground. “Dean…” he whispers against the warm lips still brushing his own and Dean inhales like he’s breathing Sam in, like he’s about to slip underwater and their mouths meet in earnest now. Sam hadn’t taken that bracing breath and he’ll blame that for the way his head is spinning.

They kiss like they’ve forgotten how and maybe they have; gentle, exploratory movements. Dean’s tongue licks tentatively at Sam’s lips, like he’s asking permission and it hasn’t been this unsure since they were fourteen and eighteen and Sam had finally summoned the courage to kiss his big brother like he’d dreamed of doing for over a year.

They break apart, breathing hard, and rest their foreheads together, take a second to take it all in. “Sam, God...I can’t, you’re - ” Dean can’t seem to string a coherent thought together and gives up in favour of dragging his mouth across Sam’s jawline, warm wet kisses that are threatening to make Sam’s knees give out again. He’s had enough of that for today, so he pulls away from Dean’s warmth.

The stricken look on Dean’s face makes Sam’s breath catch and he makes his intent plain, yanking his t-shirt over his head and falling back onto the bed. “Dean, please,” he says, soft and insistent and Dean’s relief is palpable. He chases after Sam, blanket Sam’s body with his own, presses their bare chests together. “Anything, Sammy,” Dean swears, like it’s a vow, cradling Sam’s face in tender hands and Sam could die happy. Everything they had been, everything they’d had, is rushing back over him, into his heart and brain and body. He drags Dean down against him, pushes his face into Dean’s skin, hears his heart pounding wildly beneath the warm flesh.

“It’s been so long, Dean, and I - ” Sam can’t find the words he wants and Dean silences him with a bone-melting kiss. They tangle closer together, Dean’s leg between Sam’s. Sam breaks free of Dean’s mouth and satisfies his earlier urge to soothe Dean’s scars with his lips, running over the marks left behind by the life they lead and the distance between them. He tongues the scars like he can make them disappear and Dean moans under his touch.

Sam is hard in his jeans and he can feel Dean’s own cock hot against his thigh, but there’s no urgency, no animal rush of lust. This is a reconnection, a rekindling, and Sam is content to simply lie there under the crush of Dean’s body and kiss him until the world crumbles down around them. Dean’s hands are roaming across Sam’s skin, touching him everywhere, like he’s trying to convince himself that Sam is real, that he isn’t going to disappear. “Jesus, Sam,” he breathes out, with a reverence Dean usually saves for things like vintage cars or beautiful burgers, and Sam feels adoration like he hasn’t in years.

“How did I let you go?” Dean is whispering, his lips tracing the shell of Sam’s ear, voice trembling with emotion. “I should have gone with you. You coulda gone to school and I coulda done - done something, and we would have been together and it would have been like this all the time and _God_ , Sammy, why did I let you go?” Dean is babbling, and his hold on Sam has turned frantic, desperate and clutching, his face pressed into Sam’s throat. Sam feels like Dean’s words are sinking through his skin and into his blood, carrying all through his body in a heated thrum of emotion. Dean’s not really looking for a reply, but Sam gives it to him anyways, has to get the words out to make Dean realize that they hadn’t had a choice, neither of them. “You couldn’t have left Dad, Dean.” Sam’s hands stroke over Dean’s broad back, comforting, soothing. “You know you couldn’t.”

“I could have.” Dean’s voice is ragged, barely controlled. “I _should_ have. You’re the only thing that matters, Sammy. _You_.”

Sam doesn’t answer this time, doesn’t remind Dean that the only reason that they’re here now is because of Dad, because Dean needed to find him and needed Sam to help him. He doesn’t want to make this about Dad. It’s more than that. It’s them, together again after everything and that’s the only thing that’s important. He just gets his hands on either side of Dean’s head, the brush of short hair soft against his palms, and pulls Dean back enough to get their lips together again. At the same time, he pushes up with his thigh, pressing against that hard, heated line of flesh.

Dean gasps into his mouth, pushing back, the jut of his hip rubbing against Sam’s own dick through the confines of his jeans. Sam arches against him like a cat, and they fall into a rhythm, slow and deep and languid, obeying the demands of their bodies. They’re panting into each other’s mouths now, peppered with irresistible, uncoordinated kisses, like each touch of tongue and lip is all that’s feeding the unending roll of their bodies together and they’ll die if they stop.

Sam slides his hands down Dean’s flanks, coming home to rest on his hips and pull him in closer, deeper, on every thrust. He can feel himself threatening to fly apart and he uses his hands on Dean’s skin to anchor him down, uses Dean’s weight on top of him to keep from floating away. Dean is whining above him, Sam’s name on endless repeat in different tones and inflections like the world’s most ineffective exorcism, keeping Sam in his body instead of forcing him out.

Sam’s release hits him without warning, like a freight train and he’s gasping and clutching at Dean, pulling him closer like he’s trying to climb inside his skin. Dean pushes against him once more before tumbling over the edge right behind him, still murmuring Sam’s name like it’s the only word he knows, and then he slumps down onto the bed, pulling Sam with him, cradled against him.

They breathe through the come-down together, tangled around each other, sweat-slick skin gliding together. They’re both sticky and disgusting, never having managed to get their clothes off - Dean in his boxers, Sam one step further, still in his jeans. Still, it’s the least of their concerns right now. Sam’s head is pillowed on Dean’s outstretched arm and Dean is trailing his fingertips in curlicues across Sam’s ribs, tracing over old scars. Stanford hadn’t added any physical marks to him, just mental ones, and Sam can feel those healing already.

No one is in a hurry to move any time soon, content to bask in the afterglow like snakes under a heat lamp. Dean strokes the hair away from Sam’s sweaty forehead, the motion achingly familiar, and Sam closes his eyes to savour it deeper. Dean is speaking softly into his ear, lips brushing against his skin.

“I don’t know whether to never let you do the laundry again or make you do it all the time.”

“Shut up,” Sam noses into Dean’s neck. “My jeans are a disaster and it’s all your fault. So you’re on laundry detail now.”

“How is that fair? My boxers are a mess too, y’know, and that wasn’t my doing.”

“My boxers _and_ jeans, Dean. You make me come in my pants, you get to clean it up.”

Dean’s laughter rolls through Sam’s body, deep and soft and washing over him like warm water. “Deal.”


End file.
